Oh dear.

1. B-a-d Maurizio. A bread machine has appeared at our house.

2. It is nearly 10 pm and is still faintly light outside.

3. One of our houseguests (who is still suffering from slight jet lag) has informed me that it was beginning to get light at 4.30 am this morning.

**********
On a positive note, Hiroko may have found a free phone replacement. When riding my bike to the station to meet her friends the other day, her phone fell out of her pocket into the street and was run over by a bus. (If this weren't so vexing, it would be really funny. Well, okay, it actually is pretty funny. What are the chances?)

Here is another picture from Hay... something is vexatiously awry with Blogger and it is not allowing me to add more pictures to earlier entry.

L to R: Stefi, Dawn and me.

what happens

This is what happens when the electrician arrives at your house at 8.09 a.m. But we like him, which is a good thing esp. as we seem to be seeing him rather frequently. (It seems to have escaped my tirade yesterday that our electrics have again been wonky, with the bathroom and Hiroko's room plunged into darkness for two nights. Just at the time that we have two of Hiroko's American friends here, bringing our capita count up to 6 in the house.)

So, now I am well on my way to today's hand-shaking state. But in a good way. An hysterically good way.

Since appear to self to be alert, and since downloaded Hay pictures in order to get Three Coffee Pots picture, shall post some of those as well.

*******

So, my best beloved children, on Saturday, we went on the post-grad trip to the Hay Festival-- Dawn, Stefi, Matthew and myself. This is a literary festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Wales (many apologies for the annoyingly tinkly music, but this was the more interesting site i found), which town/village/hamlet (although don't think it is a hamlet. was told what a hamlet is, but cannot remember exactly. think it means a town without a pub.) is known for its absurd number of second-hand book shops and antiques. There are 33 second-hand book shops. Am sure you can all imagine what a danger this was for me to make such a journey. And I made it out with only 4 books. They each cost 1 GBP. (such a deal!)

To R is picture of Stefi, Dawn and Matt descending the stairs at the Castle to the next level of tents set up to sell books and other necessary items, such as paella. Most of the day, it was spitting rain, but by mid-afternoon, it was perfectly lovely.

According to the site linked above, a giantess named Matilda built Hay Castle in one night and could hurl boulders more than a mile. King John had her starved to death. Okay.

The Honesty Bookshop is in the Castle grounds and has no shopkeeper present; you just select your books and put money into a little slot in a box for what you take. This is just another example of the charming British faith in humanity, which has amazed me on several occasions.

And, of course, we found some yarn -- well, Dawn is actually at fault here for finding it; I merely bought it out of courtesy to the local sheep. As well as a picture post card of the actual organic sheep from which the yarn comes.

how nice.

Now that the sun has come out in force and with heat, our radiators have miraculously revived themselves after being inoperative for the three days of humid cold. Even the bizarre hot-natured person that I am had to shut my window completely for the first time since September! And my third toe on each foot is only now beginning to thaw.

To top that off, Bank Holiday Monday results in the longest lines imaginable at the Post Office. Why? After waiting in line at the Parrot-mascot Post Office, giving up after 20 minutes, rode bike to the Post Office in other direction only to find that line longer and to find that I didn't have the address necessary to post the absurdly large envelope that had to be purchased AT the Post Office, rendering my trip partially pointless.

Tonight, am going to dinner at 'the world's best Chinese food restaurant', the Phoenix Garden in Llanishen, with the Tatham family (my fabulous Rotary counselor). James (my friend, and the son) has found gainful employment teaching English at St. David's College here in Cardiff; this is cause for much rejoicing!

Still sorry for not getting act together for catching up. There is something wrong with my head at the moment :) But don't worry, Mama, you'll get to see pictures...

danger to one's self

Is it dangerous for one's health to cut one's hand on a yogurt container while trying to crush it further into the rubbish bin (trying to use the 'proper' terminology in development of multi-cultural sensitivity) so that one doesn't have to change the bag? I don't think a yogurt container will give you tetanus. And am up to date on all my shots. But should something unfortunate occur, sue Tesco for having flimsy dairy containers and open a Feline Hospice in my name... a kitty cat rescue mission of sorts, NOT the other kind of cat house (but that would involve tricky business ventures in Germany -- pun fully intended).

Off to library now with Georgia the Greek. Immersion in books for a while should inspire some desire for procrastination, so perhaps will get around to writing about my interesting stories from the last two weeks and posting some pictures.

one of my favorite things

... is tearing apart my entire room, digging through drawers, emitting the occasional vexed oath at things not being in their usual assigned location, grinding teeth, etc. before realising approximately 9 hours later (upon awaking this morning) that my extra camera battery had been thoughtfully put into my OCD travel folder last week so that it wouldn't be forgotten.

bingo in britain

(well, it was actually in wales, but the alliteration works better. apologies to the welsh.)

They do bingo differently here. There are not little cards with 'B', 'I', 'N', 'G', 'O' rows that are called like 'B-14'. There are booklets with several games in them, color coded, with vertical rows arranged by tens across from left to right and then they call numbers in an initially confusing way. Like 'all the sevens, seventy seven' and 'five and nine, fifty nine' -- to which people respond, 'woo! woo!', which i am assuming is supposed to sound like a train, although the reason for this has not become apparent at this point. Then, there is 'legs eleven, eleven' -- and then the men cat-call and clink their classes with forks or whatever. Also, one does not yell, 'BINGO!' -- one calls, 'House!' in a very civilised tone.

And HERE, have conveniently located a bingo dictionary for those of you curious folks :) It is cunningly called Bingo Lingo.

The reason for this cultural bingo analysis is the fund-raising quiz night tonight at the Park Conservative Club around the corner from my house. It is to fund part of a new floor for the sacristy at St. Martin's. Sheila came by and collected me to go and we had a fun time, although they set the raffle machine incorrectly and so people who had low numbers had no chance of winning. And of course, my numbers were bought early and therefore were in the 20s.

Had fish and chips and now feel quite to have maxed out fried food requirement for month.

My contributions to the quiz were very limited. I believe that my most impressive answer was that Bam-Bam was adopted by The Rubbles... (although must admit had no idea he was adopted). Oh, and I was appreciated for knowing what color a plane's 'black box' is. Four US Presidents have been assassinated while in office (got that wrong). And who knew that constellations were called different names here? The Big Dipper is called The Plough. Yet another useful tidbit of information is that the term potpourri literally means 'rotten pot'.

*****

Yesterday was quite a busy day! Walked to Riverside market with Kath (Maurizio's girlfriend) and then, after helping Fabiana with her papers, she -- Fabiana -- and I went for a bike ride all over God's creation. Well, I mean, just through a small part of reasonably-sized Cardiff, but it was far in my head. We first rode to Roath Park (about 7 minutes ride from our house; lighthouse to R), through Cathays cemetary (naturally) and then to the Bay! The Bay is Fabiana's escape when she needs to flee somewhere. She has been quite more adventurous on her bike than myself.

All the way to the Bay! It only takes about 15 minutes, so really not that bad. Rode around the docks and around the side of the bay where the Norwegian Church and Cardiff tourist centre are located, where I had never been before.

In attempt to be artistic (and because they were so cute with their beaks tucked under their wings), took picture of ducks sleeping on a floating thing next to a big boat.


******

Other news:
The Northern Ireland Assembly met today for the first time in 3 years.

Bono will be guest editor of The Independent (this weekend, I think).

BBC4 sounds amused and bemused by the deployment of US troops to the Mexican border.

A water emergency has been declared in south-east England and water restrictions are imminent.

The new season of Big Brother begins on Thursday... HOW is this newsworthy? WHY is 'reality' t.v. still in our society? Shouldn't this 'cultural' item have imploded by now?

It is forecast to rain in both Venice and Paris for the duration of my trip. Oh, hoorah.

60 pounds???

Really?

This is pretty darn close to $100... For a kitten? An ordinary alley breed of kitten? (yes, just happened upon another pet shop today, so had to go in and check out the kitty selection)

Fabiana and I have decided that we should just get a cat and breed kittens and sell them. But that wouldn't work so well, as I would probably run potential buyers away by excessively intensive interviews in style of child adoption agency.

The park was lovely today -- people were paddling about in the little boats, the seagulls were shrieking in their raucous manner and diving at each other, and everything is so green! But then I got cold sitting still doing my sudoku, so biked home. Am going to begrudge the hills tomorrow.

It's a sign...

... of just how much I miss my Flee cat when I am soooooo excited that the little Word Help Kitty character has decided to stay open even though Word is now closed (this is really rather strange, since she usually goes away as soon as you even click to another program... but oh well!). In case anyone thinks me insane for this comment and doesn't know what in the world I am talking about, you can change the little Clippy Help character to a variety of other personifications in your preferences for Word. The kitty meows at you if you need to save before closing a document and it stretches and purrs. This is really a ridiculously sad commentary on my mental state :)

SPEAKing of kitties, I almost brought one home yesterday from Central Market. Am slowly luring Fabiana over to my side, and she even said "I think we need one!" The nice man at the pet shop let us play with the two kittens just because we had nice accents. The kitten that we want is black with white socks and a little milk mustache on her upper lip -- OMG IT IS SO CUTE!!!! Personally, I think she would look quite precious sitting in my window next to Mildred, the yellow Gerbera daisy.

Fabiana cooked a lovely pasta al forno (actually two huge ones! hooray, leftovers!) for some of her classmates last night and invited me down from my Sudoku lair as well. My contribution was strawberries (yay! they are in season!) and cream and madeira cake for dessert, 'freshly baked by local craftsmen' -- that's what it said on the bag.

Then we went to the city centre to (i think) the one pub in Cardiff that is non-smoking! Tried an interesting chocolate brew -- sounds kind of shady, but it was actually pretty tasty and not overly chocolatey. Perhaps a little watery for a dark, but am not complaining.

Think I should ride bike today. To the park. P'raps will do...

THUNDER!!!!

And maybe some lightning, too!

It's all just rawther exciting.

Am so terribly excited to hear thunder that Georgia and Hiroko think have lost mind. (aren't they the silly ones to think it was still here in the recent past anyway?) Georgia has fled to her house to cower.

Have taken precaution and unplugged computer from power, so really should attempt to write some more on the remaining battery instead of faffing about on blogger...

But, ooh! ooh! a Storm!

Katharine and I now wonder if we are supposed to disconnect from wireless internet as well since it might be an electrical connection. Where is Maurizio when you need him? Oh yes, he's gone home to Italy for two weeks... blast him.

Ooh! Just saw lightning! Hoorah!

***************
Here's a little storm story:

They were together in the House.

Just the two of them.

It was a cold, dark, stormy night.

The storm had come quickly and each time the thunder boomed he watched her jump.
She looked across the room and admired his strong appearance...

and wished that he would take her in his arms, comfort her and protect her from the storm.

She wanted that...more than anything.

Suddenly, with a pop, the power went out...

she screamed...

he raced to the sofa where she was cowering.

He didn't hesitate to pull her into his arms.

He knew this was a forbidden union and expected her to pull back.

He was surprised when she didn't resist but instead clung to him.

The storm raged on...

as did their growing passion and there came a moment when each knew
that they had to be together.

They knew it was wrong...
Their families would never understand...

So consumed were they in their passion that they heard no opening of doors...

just the faint click of a camera......

****

Happy Birthday to Ole' Jim!

Yes, indeedy. I almost called at midnight my time to tell him how fortunate he was to still have 6 more hours in Central Standard Time 'til the 7th decade arrived. But I think I was asleep by then.

He seems to have a thrilling day planned, albeit with fewer random surprises than if I were there. Doing some work. Oh hoorah :) Personally, I think he should party with Flee and Eliza Doolittle, like those two foolish felines could be friends. But that probably won't happen. Maybe someone should send another cat to Colonial Drive as a pressie -- hee hee hee.

Could not locate image on net of Showboat 'Haaaaaaapppppy New Year!' scene with Joe E. Brown (chipping away at my belief in the omnipotence of internet), which would have been creatively captioned 'Haaaaaapppppy Birthdaaaayy!'

But this is at least the man :)

And it will be captioned:

'Jolly Good Show!!!!!!'

Sadly, there is no funny hat.
Or a tooty, flippy party horn.

Oh, listen! Someone is celebrating by repeatedly honking their horn outside my window! I may throw something at them.

Sunday

Just got home from parish lunch at lovely Italian restaurant down the road -- good fun. Although red wine does nothing for inspiring one to write 3000 words. Had no chance of doing the biscuit quiz -- not only does 'biscuit' refer to cookies, but apparently also to crackers (in american speak). Who knew? And who knew you could make up a quiz of 45 questions of biscuit names?

This is me and my friend, Sheila, taken by Francesca, who is nine :) Sheila talked me into helping with the collection today in the service. nervous...

(Sheila won a prize in the raffle that is a framed picture of the Roath area of Cardiff from around the turn of the 20th century, I think; and she gave it to me, so I will remember Cardiff -- isn't that the sweetest thing? This is Wellfield Road, about a 5 minute walk from my house. There used to be street cars in Cardiff and you can see the tracks. The building in the corner junction on the left is now a Starbucks.)

Today was a baptism in church -- the baby was stark naked and placed into the baptismal! Who knew? He was very good and did not shriek.

Gorgeous day today. Almost hot (hahaha).

Who knew?

Too bad am hermitting self for rest of day.

Last night watched interesting show on Owain Glyndwr, the last Welsh Prince of Wales. Yet another chip away from the Illusion of the Noble English. Yet another story of unjust oppression... similar to the Irish situation (in case I didn't mention that after my trip -- starvation from the potato famine's was pretty much the fault of the english.). Henry IV was shady (although he wasn't exactly responsible for the potato famine). A shame that Charles VI of France went mad, or things might have gone differently...

Then, a very interesting show on the Lady Chatterley obscenity trial from the 60s. Had no idea that this happened.

Then read some more about stereotypes and Otherness & went to sleep.

At the moment, there is some pathetic version of Robin of Sherwood on t.v. The worst acting EVER. There is no reason to kick at a flock of chickens. And there is no reason for this pitiful doodly-doodly music :)
(another cup of mead for me, please.)

Vote Blue, Go Green

This is not new news, but as they are still commenting on it in the news and Fabiana has a magazine downstairs that reminded me of it, it seemed necessary to share...

So we all need to do our part to prevent waste (see yesterday's link) and conserve what we have left of our planet (including the French with their nuclear testing in Fiji). David Cameron, the Conservative leader is helping by riding his bicycle to work everyday. However, he is followed through the streets of London congestion by an official car carrying his briefcase, work shoes and boxes of documents -- hee hee hee. He is making other efforts to make his home more energy efficient, etc. but this is just amusing.

In other environmental news, there was a rather significant article in The Independent this week in which Ken Livingston, the mayor of London, recommended following the old adage: 'If it's yellow, let it mellow.' Now, mama, I am not being rude; just reporting the news, ma'am! This was almost an entire page of how the mayor's household does not flush toilets with only urine...

Another note to my mama to ease her mind: Bausch and Lomb's MoistureLoc contact solution that causes the horrific fungal infection, which can lead to blindness, is the solution made by the 'Greenville USA' (am assuming SC) plant. The solution that I buy is produced in Italy and the Irish Medicines Board has claimed no danger from this plant. Additionally, if you click on the B&L link above, you can get a coupon for a free bottle of other B&L solutions (up to a value of $8) or for a refund of MoistureLoc purchased in the US.

news flash

Americans follow American academic writing conventions.

Wow... we didn't know that. No idea. Let me phone Connie Chung.

Have been advised to alter my 'story-telling mode' (?) for second piece of coursework for one of my classes. Since have 95% finished paper 2, am not too bovered. But, nonsensically, am still slightly bovered :)

Headache.

Perhaps we could take some chipper advice from Woodsey Owl and think of other things...

(although his new slogan is a little annoying.
'Give a hoot, don't pollute!' was much better.
And I miss the pin-wheel.
Katharine has a t-shirt with Woodsy.)

a label! a label!

So, finally have a label for myself! (although perhaps should qualify this by being a 'partial') It is always good to find a group to belong to.

Freegan

There is a show about freeganism on Radio 4 right now. Yes, I know there are insightful things to be writing on vocabulary selection and a corpus study of national stereotyping. But at the moment, am cleaning house and planning how to take over (I mean, SAVE) the world. This freegan ideology is quite ME. Those of you who have seen me in my extraordinarily fiscally conservative mode know this. Those sad people who have been spared this side of my personality, well, count yourselves temporarily safe.

Today -- last Lexis class... sadly, this is not the entire group. But we'll remedy that when we all go out after everything is turned in. And when we come back next June to graduate!

(from L to R: Monirah, Ben, Patrick, Georgia, Andy, Dr. Gordon Tucker, Katharine, Frances, Isabella, Catherine and me -- Franceska in front. Don't have the patience to keep trying to zoom this in and make the image better at the moment.)

Then I foolishly allowed self to be talked into lunching at Capesso (it took us 30 minutes to make it off campus, from everyone taking a million pictures of each other in the sun and of me and my BMX Bandit self on hot bike. haha.). There was no gorgeous Scotsman working at the coffee shop, yet again. Am convinced that Georgia and Dawn invented him.However, am glad I went since we sat outside and also I LOVE coronation chicken and haven't had it in forEVAH! mmmmm :)

Have been informed that my laugh is 'filthy' -- what in the world is up with THAT? This concerns me... but Laura apparently has one, too. So as long as am able to be in another group, that is okay, right? Have never heard of such before.

One day left... sort of.

Crisis has been averted. Milk supply has been replenished. I heart milk!

Today was the last Discourse lecture -- it is a pretty coolio topic, but since the professor read most of the lectures from the notes that he handed us, and this in an extremely soothing voice, have been trying not to fall asleep every Thursday afternoon of the semester. In this, i was successful. And thank goodness for not actually having had the madness to TAKE this class for credit -- as everyone enrolled slowly goes mad as they attempt the 100% 3,000 word assessment.

Tomorrow is last lecture of Lexis and the last official lecture of the semester (except for the makeup lecture for Issues in Language Teaching on Monday. blast.).

Glad to hear of Musawi's sentencing. And the court and the media allowing him a platform from which to spew more hatred. His mother was on the radio this evening whinging about being sentenced to never seeing her son again... and???

Another exciting note of the week is my foray into the exhilarating world of electrical repair! Am quite proud of resourcefulness in dismantling lamp plug and replacing tiny fuse within, which blew when bulb went the other day. Who knew? I just figured, 'What the hecks are those screws on the plug for if not to open up and toodle around, esp. if replacement bulb does nothing?' And just for common knowledge, you can get fuses at the local corner store if you run out of time to make it to the electric store before 5. hoorah!

(Why is there an ad for PET INSURANCE on t.v.?)

mmm... now there is an ad for Cadbury (keep the country happy)...

It tries. It really tries.

But Silent Hill fails to reach any sort of mental depth at all.

Tonight, Fabiana and I went to the cinema so that she will have fodder for her film review later this week. Oh, she has fodder, if she wants to hear me rant :) Although my ramblings do occasionally go in circles, preventing easy comprehension (and with the accent, well...).

Film is classed as, and I quote, "Action/Adventure/Horror". There is not much 'action' that you don't fully expect (except for the Michael Jackson Thriller-type nurses, at one point). Since things are mostly obvious throughout, I don't class that as 'adventure.' Only one option left. And in parts, that was just comical. Horrifyingly so.

On the positive side, some of the cinematography was nice. And I did like the mother's sweater until it got all dirty.

Where to begin with the rest... Firstly, this silly thing is based on a GAME; this leads me to believe that it was written by Gamers. And, frankly, I don't think they're the most well-socialised crayons in the box - the most obvious evidence of my argument being lady cop, Cybil, who is like a gun show advertisement in general and who, when splashed by acid from lurching creature (these are never explained), starts this action I could have sworn was about to turn into a pole dance (naturally, like all Gamer-fantasies, she is hotter than hot and in a uniform that is tighter than tight.). Happily, there was no pole dance. But I did like her boots.

Well, the mother is a typical, ridiculous thriller character with the dumbest dialogue. So, she's trembling around in an absolutely neurotic state through the first third of the film, shrieking periodically when there is nothing else to do. (cunningly enough, when she's descended into this darkened maze of whatever, she just happens to have a Zippo in her pocket -- even though there is no evidence that she smokes. this annoyed me.) Then, after she and the HLC (hot lady cop) decide to be ghost-fighting buddies, mother turns into The Strong One... WHAT?

The Jeep Liberty apparently has no airbag (right).
If you are in a burned-out town, wouldn't more buildings be, oh, burned?
There is a tiring amount of gratuitous flailing about as well as various and sundry liquids on walls and windows.
Mutant cockroaches are never a good idea (except to gamers).
Why are there always empty stretchers randomly placed around in deserted hospitals?
How is there electricity in an elevator in a deserted hospital (but only the elevator, mind), in a deserted and electricity-less town that has been erased from the map?
Mother appears suddenly in different top at end (so, was there just an extra one in her handbag for after she lost her fresh Downy softness?).

The ending is a blatant attempt to be as twisty and clever as The Sixth Sense and The Others. It is neither twisty nor clever.

There is, however, some city in Pennsylvania that is on fire underground and some such similarity to the film. Although, it pains me to give any credibility to the film by relating it to anything in reality.

Maybe the Mother character can go to the Zippo Swap Meet 2006.

******
Hiroko has some sushi left from her friends' coming for dinner. Must go and feed my annoyance.